Barnett defends debt blow-out
Colin Barnett has defended the blow-out of State debt under his watch while dismissing suggestions his Government needed to sell off utilities to balance the books.
Acknowledging publicly for the first time today that his government's finances were bound to slip into the red next year, the Premier insisted there would be no wholesale privatisations to fix the situation.
There have been growing calls for in the electricity sector for the Government to slipt up and sell off State-owned power provider Synergy, including from Treasurer Mike Nahan.
Amid ballooning State debt of more than $20 billion, tumbling iron ore prices and the loss of WA's AAA credit rating, critics have argued that selling utilities must be done to repair the bottom line.
Although Mr Barnett has flagged the sale of some State assets such as the Perth Market Authority, port facilities and crown land, he said there was no need to put whole utilities on the chopping block.
Mr Barnett warned that while debt was manageable and could be repaid over time, selling whole utilities would be permanent and would hinder the Government's ability to build the State.
He cited the case of South Australia to illustrate his point, saying South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill had confided to him recently that that state's previous decisions to privatise assets had been a mistake.
"We can fix debt overnight," Mr Barnett told the ABC this morning.
"We can sell of the utilities.
"But I'm not going to do that.
"I'm not going to do what Queensland and New South Wales are doing.
"Jay just made the comment to me in a context of Queensland talking about some of their privatisations… 'we've got nothing left to sell, Colin, we've sold it all, the state's just stuck'.
"Now I'm not going to go down that path.
"Some of my colleagues think it would be a good idea to sell one of the big utilities and yeah, we might get $10 billion and we might halve our debt.
"But is that good for the long term future of this State? No.
"We've announced some facilities within ports - not ports themselves - and that may run into several billion dollars.
"We're going to sell a lot of land that is surplus to requirements.
"So we can control our debt level.
"We can manage our debt - it's a matter of choice.
"Do you want to sell assets or do you want to carry a bit of debt.
"I want those assets - Western Power, Synergy, the Water Corporation and the transport authorities to actually perform better, not just flog them off.
"And that's about building the state."
Opposition Leader Mark McGowan was today scathing of the Premier's admission that WA would slide into deficit, arguing he should resign given his famous 2009 vow never to preside over one.
When pressed to outline how he would restore the budget to balance Mr McGowan was noncommittal, saying Labor would release its fiscal policies when it was ready.
He also ruled out working co-operatively with the Government to find savings in the budget, arguing the problems were of the Premier's creation and he should fix them.
"This is the first Premier in 15 years in Western Australia to lead this State into deficit," he said.
"This will mean for ordinary families across the State higher charges, more financial pain, cuts to schools and cuts to hospitals.
"That is the legacy of the poor financial management of the Barnett Government.
"There is no recession.
"The economy is still doing well.
"Yet this Premier through his management of the finances of the last six years has taken the best set of books in the country and converted it into one of the worst."
